GRAY WAVES ROLLED toward me from a horizon streaked with bruised clouds. The boat bucked into an oncoming wave, pitched hard to one side, and righted. I was 120 miles out of Juneau on my way to Lituya Bay, and a mile to starboard I could see the swells exploding into spray against Cape Spencer. For a moment I considered turning back, but I decided against it because I had already turned back once before, gone timid a day earlier at the sight of ten-foot rollers leaping and tumbling in a tide rip that pours out of Cross Sound into the gulf beyond the cape. Besides, though the sea frightens me, the weather and choppy water matched my mood.